Thanks for checking out the Nik Hawks Show, please become a patron over at nikhawks.com!

I started this podcast in 2014, but it wasn't called The Nik Hawks Show.

My wife Lee and I own the company Paleo Treats, so I called the show the Paleo Treats Podcast and had the company buy the initial equipment, like mics and mixing boards and headphones and software.

Beyond one or two half-hearted attempts at advertising (episodes 32 and 33), the podcast never made Paleo Treats any money, and I always had to take time from the business in order to record these conversations and share ‘em with the world.

Over the course of 50+ episodes it became apparent that the podcast didn’t really have anything to do with Paleo, that I was exploring deeply personal topics, that Paleo Treats’ only purpose was to purchase the initial equipment to get this thing off the ground and pay for ongoing hosting, and that just having the word “Paleo” in the title was enough to stop people from even trying to listen to it.

Sometime around episode 58, based on feedback from listeners and iTunes reviews, I started thinking about how to make this podcast more approachable, how to separate it from Paleo Treats in order to pursue topics that were WAY off the Paleo path, and how to stop leaning on Paleo Treats the business in order to keep the show alive financially.

That brings us up to episode 59, which is the first official episode of The Nik Hawks Show. It took me 58 shows to warm into this, and now I’m psyched to spin off in new directions!

As I keep moving forward I deeply appreciate your harnessing in on the journey in pursuit of excellence, please reach out with any suggestions or questions.

This show is made for me and YOU, let's make this excellent together!

If you want to support this show, please visit my Patreon feed at nikhawks.com

"I never thought I would look forward to getting an email
again."

Dave is a news junkie and the author of daily email newsletter
NextDraft, which he describes as a "modern day news
column". He organizes the newsletter into the 10 most
fascinating news items of the day, works on it for 3-4 hours in the
morning and blasts it out around 1 pm PST. Dave is famous for
having 75 tabs open at any one time as he scours the net for news
every day.

"I lock in pretty hard and open up my laptop, not moving a ton
other than getting coffee or water for about 3 or 4
hours."

The NextDraft perspective comes from being very well read along
with being both curious and horrified by humanity, as well as
offering varying perspectives on any given story. If you're
looking for a daily wrap up of the most day's most fascinating
stories, NextDraft is a fantastic place to start.

The real power of NextDraft comes from Dave's personality; when
you read it every day it feels like Dave wrote the email just for
you and not for the 75,000 email subscribers on his list plus the
120,000 NextDraft app users. Among those users are counted
some of the most powerful and plugged in journalists out there,
making NextDraft not just a "repeater station" but much more of a
high signal to noise operation than you'd normally find.

"What NextDraft does is slow the news down and deliver news
from a perspective you can learn to trust."

Having always wanted to be part of the news business and the
media industry, Dave says NextDraft is a joy to write and that
shows in every word he types in.

In this interview, Dave talks about the genesis of one of the
most popular email newsletters on the net, how much feedback he
gets, and what he's proudest of.